During a recent American Idol conference call, several recently eliminated contestants were asked about how all the contestants were dealing with the controversies. Luke Menard said, “I was advised to not even listen to what anyone has to say online, whether it’s good or bad, and I did that. I did have some family members that would kind of try to leak to me what people were saying online about me, and I stopped right away, and said ‘You know, what, I don’t want to hear it. I’m here to work and try to be the best performer that I can.’ Listening to all that stuff would just mess with my head, so I just made a conscious effort to just not pay attention to that.”

When asked specifically about how news reports about David Hernandez working in a strip bar impacted the contestants, Menard replied, “You know I don’t think it does as much as people may think on the outside. It’s something that the news makes a big deal out of, and we’re so busy and concentrated and focused on the inside of American Idol that personally I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was thinking about my performance, and what I can do to keep myself on the show. So, personally, it really didn’t have an impact on myself.”

While the recent scandals might not have impacted Luke Menard, one of his fellow contestants had a little bit of a different opinion. In regards to the recent controversies about himself, David Hernandez and Amanda Overmeyer, Danny Noriega said, “Yeah, definitely, we all try to stay away from the Internet as much as possible, but it’s kind of hard to ignore when you’re turning on the TV in the morning and seeing it. But yeah, we definitely, we all had our little talks and stuff, but you know they’re amazing people.”